Of Pawprints and Loneliness
by MistressParamore
Summary: Angua faces her fears on a visit to Scoone Avenue. What fears? And what happens? Oneshot. Probably not what you're thinking, either!


**_Of Pawprints and Loneliness_**

**Pairing**: Angua von Uberwald/Lady Sybil Vimes  
**Genre**: Angst/Romance  
**Rating**: T  
**Setting**: No particular book, but in terms of timeline around Snuff.  
**Summary**: Angua faces her fears when she visits the Vimes residence on Scoone Avenue. But what fears? And what happens?

* * *

Captain Angua von Uberwald repressed a sigh as she picked up the newly received clacks message, desperately looking one more time around the busy squad room and peering upstairs at Commander Vimes' empty office.

"Nobby!" She darted forward with wolverine speed and accosted the little Corporal as he headed for the door. Nobby started in surprise as the blonde Captain descended upon him.

"Er, everything ok, Cap'n?" he asked in some confusion, his frown causing some flaking of his many skin lesions.

"Yes thanks, Nobby. Er, have you seen Mister Vimes lately?" She waved the clacks message by way of explanation.

"Not since this morning, I fink he was in a hurry when he left." Nobby scrounged behind his ear and retrieved a noisome cigarette butt. "Summat to do with that business at Gimlet's. Captain Carrot's gone with him. He said he'd go back home afterwards."

Nobby grinned evilly. "Her Ladyship was very _speffic_ 'bout that, apparently."

Angua nodded absently. She fingered the clacks message again. She supposed she'd better deliver it to the Commander's house. He had expressly said that he wanted these particular results delivered to him personally and '_not lying around for everyone to read but me and I'm bloody in charge_.' One of the Commander's grievances this week was that he was sure he was the last person to hear any news; leaving this clacks message would definitely be bad news. For _her_.

"Look," Angua turned back to Nobby. "I've got to deliver this ok? If anyone asks, I won't be long. Thanks!" she called over her shoulder as she set off briskly.

With every step taking her nearer to Scoone Avenue, Angua had to steel herself for the forthcoming meeting. She hoped that Lady Sybil wouldn't open the door, but knew, fundamentally, that she wouldn't be able to avoid meeting her. It wasn't that she disliked Lady Sybil in any way; quite the opposite. She was a lovely woman - gracious, kind and caring, and what's more, she had completely transformed Mister Vimes. She had the same quality as Carrot in that everyone liked her, almost immediately. The problem was the wolf part of her. It is often said of some people that they have a gift with animals; the animals almost instinctively know that they can trust that person and the animal feels safe and secure. Lady Sybil was one of these people. It was obvious in the way she cared for her swamp dragons. Rescued dragons that flamed and scratched in terror when they were brought in to her, were almost magically soothed and quieted, and were invariably devoted to her. This was what the wolf in Angua responded to every time she saw the woman. Not even Carrot had that sort of an effect on her. She wanted to whine and roll on her back with her head on Lady Sybil's feet, and it confused the hell out of her. She found herself hanging on the aristocrat's words waiting for praise and hating herself for being such a _domesticated animal_.

Sometimes, just sometimes, Angua thought Lady Sybil _knew_. In a glance that was slightly too knowing, a smile just that shade too amused. Yet Angua couldn't reconcile that sort of underhandedness with what she knew of Lady Sybil. What Angua herself also knew was that the overpowering feeling that assaulted her wolf senses was also overpowering her human ones.

Angua stepped up to the front door of the pleasant, large house and rang the bell. After a moment, the Vimes' butler, Willikins, opened the door.

"Captain Angua?" the impeccable looking man said. It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact.

"Er, yes," Angua stammered. She pulled herself together. "Is the Commander at home?"

"No, miss. Her Ladyship is, however?"

"Thank you," Angua murmured, heart sinking. Leaving the message at the Commander's house showed that she had tried to find him, Angua told herself mechanically, desperately trying to distract herself from the sounds of footsteps coming down the hall.

"Please follow me," the butler turned and walked back down the expansive hallway.

Angua followed, staring at the rows of weaponry and suits of armour as she did so. Clearly the Ramkin's were no stranger to warfare. Somehow she couldn't shake the feeling that no matter how genteel her Ladyship was, she was not someone to cross. After all, the woman had a thousand years of battle thirsty ancestors to call on – and they looked to have been pretty successful.

Willikins showed Angua into an exquisitely furnished drawing room and silently withdrew. Almost immediately the door reopened.

"Oh Captain, how lovely to see you. I'm afraid my husband isn't here at the moment. I did hear the doorbell but Willikins was closer." Lady Sybil smiled as she shut the door behind her. Her chestnut hair shone under the light of the candles in the chandelier, discreet jewellery twinkled in her ears and her emerald dress emphasised the woman's full curves.

Plus, Angua couldn't help noticing, no dress in the world could hide a bust like Lady Ramkin's..._make that Lady __**Vime**_**s**, Angua chided herself. _Your Commander's wife, the man who would shoot you with a silver bullet if he knew what went on in your mind. _

"Angua?" Lady Sybil stepped into the room and sat down on the sofa nearest Angua with a look of concern. "Are you alright, dear?"

Angua's already highly sensitised nose could smell the pheromones that surrounded Lady Sybil. She knew, as most people do on some level when thinking about others, that the Commander and his wife had an active sex life, but imagining other people's sex lives was not something she wanted to do. But with the pheromones pouring off Lady Sybil and hitting a primal part of her brain, Angua felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights, and realised with stomach churning horror that she was highly aroused. She needed to get out of there before she did something that would have Vimes hunting her with silver bullets and a flare, intent on giving her the kind of ending he had given Wolfgang.

"Angua?" Lady Sybil repeated, leaning forward and frowning. Unfortunately her current position increased the amount of cleavage on view and Angua swallowed hard, her dry mouth and sweaty palms sending her even further into panic.

"Er..." Angua coughed, the mortification so acute she could feel her face flaming. Instead she thrust out her hand with the clacks message in it. "For Mister Vimes," she mumbled as she stuffed it into Lady Sybil's hand, scrambling to her feet and darting for the door. "I have to go," she called back to a bemused Lady Sybil, as she shut the drawing room door behind her and literally ran down the polished hallway and out of the front door.

The only thought in Angua's head as she hit Broadway at a dead run was "..._get away, just get away, get away before you do something so stupid that you will be dead, just run, get away, get away from her..."_

The predominantly human part of her raged at the cowardice and appallingly bad manners she had exhibited, knowing that Vimes would undoubtedly hear about it and want explanations, _but,_ she told herself, _what was worse? Bad manners or seducing her Commander's wife_? Angua groaned. _What makes you think she would reciprocate? She's married! And totally in love with Mister Vimes! You smelled that on her! Since when do werewolves run away, anyway? When Mister Vimes is around, and when you know you won't win_, Angua answered herself.

Pseudopolis Yard hove into view and Angua slowed as she crossed the bridge. She halted by the end of the bridge and leaned against it, closing her eyes and trying to slow her racing heartbeat that had nothing to do with her sprint across the city.

_Shit_, she thought to herself. _Just…__**shit**_.

* * *

"Sir?"

Commander Vimes looked up from the report he was wading through, trying to clear his mind from the over enthusiastic chemical analyses that Sergeant Littlebottom tended to pepper her reports with, as he stared at the owner of the voice.

"Captain," he responded, as he placed the report to one side. "Come in and close the door behind you."

Angua stepped inside, closing the door, and walked across Vimes' office, acutely aware of the penetrating stare the man was leveling at her as she sat in the wooden chair in front of his desk.

Vimes leaned forward, his dark eyes boring through the woman in front of him. People tended to underestimate Vimes' abilities in observation, and he could see that Angua was extremely ill at ease. _Even for someone forced into a one-to-one with him, _he amended mentally.

"I understand you paid a visit to Scoone Avenue yesterday," he remarked eventually, after he had judged a sufficient length of time had passed. _Lord Vetinari __**did**__ have some good tricks up that long, thin sleeve of his after all, _Vimes told himself.

Unconsciously Angua tugged at the sleeve of her tunic, her guilt not at her actions but her _thoughts_, churned nauseatingly in the pit of her stomach. As an undead she was used to carrying residual guilt from her very existence, but this most treacherous of betrayals was a form of guilt she couldn't reconcile, and her inability to reconcile it shone through like a beacon for anyone who cared to look.

"Well?" Vimes barked the question sharply.

"Um, yes, Sir, I had a clacks message and as you weren't at the Yard and Nobby said you were due to go straight home I thought it would be best to deliver it straight there…."

Angua faltered into silence under the weight of the man's stare. His face was as cold and as impenetrable as the nickname bestowed upon his ancestor and upon him too.

"Why didn't you think of sending Buggy or one of the pigeons? They've got wings." Vimes folded his hands on his desk and waited.

Angua's mouth dropped open. _Why hadn't __**she**__ thought of that? Because part of you wants to see her, to force a confrontation, to feel that body under your hands and to give over to the wolf, just once…_ she answered herself all too readily.

Vimes cut into her thoughts.

"I don't know what the hell you're playing at Captain, but heading over to my house and bothering my wife with what I can only call _spurious_ reasons, when someone of your rank should be able to use her head, is something that will _not continue_." Vimes narrowed his eyes at the pale young woman.

"Your behaviour upset my wife, Captain. Do you care to explain?"

Angua stared at the wall behind Vimes' head as she wracked her brain trying to think of something that would satisfy the Commander.

"I remembered a lead I needed to follow up Sir, at Igneous's. Couldn't wait Sir."

Vimes stared at her coolly. After what seemed to Angua like a painful eternity, the Commander gave a small nod and she rose gratefully from the wooden chair, feeling as if she had only just had a narrow escape.

Vimes watched his Captain hurry out of his office and frowned. Something was seriously wrong and he couldn't put his finger on just what it was, but he knew that somehow his wife was involved and that bothered him. _A lot_.

* * *

"Sam?"

"Yes dear?"

"Did you have that talk with Angua?"

Vimes gave his wife his full attention. They had just finished dinner and had decided to have an early night. He sat up against the headboard of the large four poster bed and watched his wife as she sat at her dressing table removing her jewellery. Somehow, every time he saw her in such unguarded moments like this made his heart lurch with protectiveness.

"Yes dear I did," he said instead, keeping his eyes focused on the back of Sybil.

"It was very strange, Sam," she mused as she turned around to her husband. "She couldn't wait to run off." Sybil turned back to the mirror and continued to cleanse and moisturise.

"Well dear, she said she had remembered a lead on another case that couldn't wait." Vimes kept his voice neutral as he watched his wife.

"Oh?" Lady Sybil caught her husband's eye in the mirror. Somehow she didn't buy that explanation and she didn't think her husband did either. He was looking too expressionless. Angua hadn't seemed in the sort of rush necessitated by work, try as Lady Sybil might, she couldn't stop thinking it was to do with _her_, somehow. The girl couldn't even look at her. Lady Sybil was a strong and pragmatic woman. There was no room for mollycoddling in the 'here today, blown up tomorrow' world of dragon breeding.

She sighed as she turned towards her husband, still watching her from the bed.

"I think it has something to do with _me_, Sam," she began, absently plucking her silk negligee as she thought. "I'm just not sure why."

Vimes nodded. "I wondered myself," he murmured.

"Why would someone run from the presence of another like that?" Lady Sybil wondered aloud, as she climbed into bed and sought the comforting embrace of her husband.

"I suppose there's a few reasons," Vimes replied, idly stroking his wife's shoulder. "Well, if they hate or are afraid of someone - neither of which apply to you, dear," he hastily added in response to Sybil's surprised look.

"Embarrassment?" Lady Sybil supplied after a moment.

"Mmmm," Vimes agreed, giving his wife a peck on the lips as she smiled. "She wasn't doing anything embarrassing was she?"

"No, I don't think so Sam," Lady Sybil returned as she lay her head back down on her husband's shoulder.

"Unless she's in love with you," Vimes said without thinking, with a smile.

For a moment neither spoke, their thoughts racing. _She couldn't be...could she?_

"What about Carrot?" Lady Sybil asked in the careful tone of one who is determined to remain normal, come what may.

"Last I heard about them, Carrot said they weren't seeing much of each other lately," Vimes responded in the same distant voice. "Gods, Sybil, it explains it all...!"

Lady Sybil raised her head and looked at her husband fully, her eyes troubled.

"Let's not jump to conclusions, Sam," she said gently. "Even if it _was_ true, she would never admit it, she'd be mortified."

After a pause, she returned to her former position and slipped her arm around her husband's waist, tenderly stroking the sensitive skin of his abdomen.

"Promise you won't be insensitive, Sam?" She asked sleepily.

"MmHmm," Vimes replied noncomitally. As Sybil drifted off to sleep, Vimes determined in his own mind exactly how he was going to extricate the truth from a very embarrassed and reluctant werewolf.

* * *

**_Comments always welcome!_**


End file.
